Friday, October 28, 2011

More on the rules

I heard back from Doug Bakes, the head of the Ontario Curling Association, in response to the blog I posted last week about the Rules problem we experienced playing The Dominion. You can read about the problems here.

Here's what Bakes told me:

" . .. . . let's quickly visit the rule that you have made mention of that states " . . . teams will conduct a coin toss to determine choice of stone colour or first practice." The OCA Rules Committee meets annually to consider all the rule suggestions that we get over the course of a curling season. This particular section was put into place for the coming season as a result of a number of requests from players of all skill levels that preferred the skill based opportunity to decide last stone advantage as opposed to the traditional coin flip. As the OCA does not have on ice officials at zone, region and some provincial events, the OCA Executive passed the guidelines mentioned in # 3 under Pre-Game Team Meeting & Practice section in the OCA Rules Supplement that would have the players do the measuring. "If the Rules Committee considers the guidelines currently in place to be a wording error, then they can quickly make a recommendation to the OCA Board and Executive to consider approval of an adjustment such as " . . . choice of stone colour or choice of practice." A change could potentially be in place prior to the start of zone playdowns for a number of events in November. The Dominion Curling Club Provincial event to be played this weekend is not effected as colour is pre-determined for the round robin pool games."

As I mentioned, it wasn't that big a deal with us knee-sliders in the zones, but it's obviously an error, one the OCA should deal with quickly in the manner Bakes describes.

Anyone have any similar wacky Rules experiences out there? And what rule would you change if you could?

Also the OCA & CCA really need to take a page from the Grand Slam time system. Thinking Time is the way to go. Don't penalize teams for playing an aggressive draw game, just those who take too long to make decisions.